Help me explain to my teenager why Thatcher was bad.

[goldenecitrone]

Just play them this.

 

[Pickman's model]

To the op: you don't need to say anything beyond pointing out she's rotten.

 

[ymu]

then how did the 'ra find bins to drop bombs in in the '90s? Hell, there were bins on the tube till the '90s before they brought in the transparent bags at above ground stations.

I don't remember it lasting as long as the 1990s, not on any widespread basis anyway, but my memory might be shifting a few years. It was mainly railway stations to start with wasn't it?

E2A: this says it was a bomb at Victoria in 1991 which started the railway station thing. No citation, but it would fit OK with my hazy memories. I'd been using trains enough by then to notice when it changed, but I'm surprised it was that late.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't remember it lasting as long as the 1990s, not on any widespread basis anyway, but my memory might be shifting a few years. It was mainly railway stations to start with wasn't it?

E2A: this says it was a bomb at Victoria in 1991 which started the railway station thing. No citation, but it would fit OK with my hazy memories. I'd been using trains enough by then to notice when it changed, but I'm surprised it was that late.

oh yeh bomb at victoria killed on iirc w/o the benefit of your link. And a bomb in camden in I believe '92 and one at harrods.

 

[Pickman's model]

.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm very proud to say the bloke who did that is my mate!

It's very good.

 

[yardbird]

Margret Thatcher

Was not a good mother.
Fact.

 

[frogwoman]

i saw a headline in the substandard (I think) yesterday with petronella wyatt going on about how thatcher was like a mother to her.

 

[enid]

It's not about Thatcher but it is about Thatcherism and it will certainly encourage your teenager to hate it! http://feela.co.uk

 

[pissflaps]

say what you like about margaret thatcher, she had a fantastic penis.

 

[ymu]

Margret Thatcher

Was not a good mother.
Fact.

This is the least important reason in the world to hate her. It's an utter irrelevancy. And it implies that women should be judged by their parenting skills, in a way that men rarely are.

There's no need for this line of counter-argument, if that is what it is intended as. Her children are horrible people and I feel no sympathy for their loss, only contempt that they didn't disown her. Their feelings are a stupid argument for holding back from the partying, let alone from making the political points that might get some airtime for a change (and for which the parties are useful space-making devices).

 

[Pickman's model]

say what you like about margaret thatcher, she had a fantastic penis.

"every prime minister should have a willie"

 

[Streathamite]

I didn't live through those times in Britain; but do people think that the country would be in better shape if she'd never been PM? [nor anyone like her who did the same things?]

Yes, very much so, her remedy for the problems we faced made things better for a minority in the short run, and much, much worse for all but a fortunate few in the long run

My recollection of Britain pre-Thatcher was a visit for a couple of weeks in approx. 1980. I was astonished at how dysfunctional the place seemed to be - so many different types of worker were on strike. Something was affected or compromised every day. The final insult to injury was, the airport arrival/departure flipper board sign workers were on strike - so it was a big scramble to find out when and where my plane would be.

oh gawd, not this old one....workers strike as a last resort Johnny, what you saw was workers standing up for themselves and fighting for their rights. And if that causes inconvenience for a few - tough. It takes two to tango, so why not ask how much management were to blame?

She may well have been overly zealous and draconian; but for those old enough to remember, didn't it seem to you like the country was headed for the rocks back then?

It had problems, but as I said she made things far, far worse.We lost 30% of our manufacturing capacity during her time, the main reason why we have such a badly unbalanced economy now. We have no home owned steel industry, coal industry, car industry or domestically owned power generation.
And we are facing fallout every day now, in so many ways, for the fact that she trashed society.
She was also handed on a plate the wealth of the biggest oil find in Western Europe and she squandered the lot on tax cuts, and enriching her Big Ticket corporate mates

 

[Glitter]

It's very good.

He did my avatar too.

He's actually just tweeted another thatcher one as well that's good! I'm on my phone and out now but if it's not linked by the time I get home I'll do it!

 

[yardbird]

This is the least important reason in the world to hate her. It's an utter irrelevancy. And it implies that women should be judged by their parenting skills, in a way that men rarely are.

I don't do hate, I find it demeaning and I didn't say she should be judged by parenting skills, but fair dos.

She was however a philistine .

 

[yardbird]

A philistine person is the man or woman who is smugly narrow of mind and of conventional morality whose materialistic views and tastes indicate a lack of and indifference to cultural and æsthetic values.[

 

[Pickman's model]

A philistine person is the man or woman who is smugly narrow of mind and of conventionalmorality whose materialistic views and tastes indicate a lack of and indifference to cultural and æsthetic values.[

i took you to mean a native of where the philistines lived round palestine.

 

[Streathamite]

1987 SDP-Lib alliance and Kinnock 'rebuilding' in preparation for Blair, plus a mini economic boom

Plus, also Labour simply had too big a mountain to climb that year

 

[Ms Ordinary]

It's not about Thatcher but it is about Thatcherism and it will certainly encourage your teenager to hate it! http://feela.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0340944749/ref=tmm_pap_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new


(s'ok you can get it from Abebooks for a couple of £)

 

[ymu]

Plus, also Labour simply had too big a mountain to climb that year

Yes, but the question was why, given the horrors of Thatcher. The SDP-Lib alliance was the primary reason, AFAIK.

 

[Pickman's model]

Plus, also Labour simply had too big a mountain to climb that year

 

[Streathamite]

Yes, but the question was why, given the horrors of Thatcher. The SDP-Lib alliance was the primary reason, AFAIK.

oh right, yes it was, but I meant 1983 was such a catastrophe that it took Labour a decade to recover

 

[scifisam]

This is the least important reason in the world to hate her. It's an utter irrelevancy. And it implies that women should be judged by their parenting skills, in a way that men rarely are.

There's no need for this line of counter-argument, if that is what it is intended as. Her children are horrible people and I feel no sympathy for their loss, only contempt that they didn't disown her. Their feelings are a stupid argument for holding back from the partying, let alone from making the political points that might get some airtime for a change (and for which the parties are useful space-making devices).

It's relevant to all the "think of her family in these sad times" stuff. Her family don't seem to have been fond of her at all, and I don't blame them. Have Mark or Carol put out any statements at all?

Btw, I am reading all the responses and will bring some of them up with my daughter. Fortunately she asked why Thatcher was so bad, so I can give her a one-sided answer with a clear conscience.

 

[ymu]

It's relevant to all the "think of her family in these sad times" stuff. Her family don't seem to have been fond of her at all, and I don't blame them. Have Mark or Carol put out any statements at all?

I wasn't very clear, but that is what my second paragraph is supposed to mean. You don't have to criticise her parenting skills to refute the "think of her family" shit.

Btw, I am reading all the responses and will bring some of them up with my daughter. Fortunately she asked why Thatcher was so bad, so I can give her a one-sided answer with a clear conscience.

Excellent.

You'll make sure she knows there is only one side though, right?

 

[Frances Lengel]

i saw a headline in the substandard (I think) yesterday with petronella wyatt going on about how thatcher was like a mother to her.

And look how she turned out.

Still, at least Thatcher made the trains run on time. Oh no, hang on, that was Jimmy Savile.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I didn't live through those times in Britain; but do people think that the country would be in better shape if she'd never been PM? [nor anyone like her who did the same things?]

My recollection of Britain pre-Thatcher was a visit for a couple of weeks in approx. 1980. I was astonished at how dysfunctional the place seemed to be - so many different types of worker were on strike. Something was affected or compromised every day. The final insult to injury was, the airport arrival/departure flipper board sign workers were on strike - so it was a big scramble to find out when and where my plane would be.

She may well have been overly zealous and draconian; but for those old enough to remember, didn't it seem to you like the country was headed for the rocks back then?

Only if you believed what you read in the papers. Thatcher got in, in 1979, at a time when the economy was showing "green shoots of recovery". Her policies, more than anything her predecessors in govt did, meant a surge in unemployment, just between '79 and '80, of close to half a million, which in turn meant greater union action. Why wouldn't you strike when your very livelihood was threatened by what her government had promised to do?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Looks like she was elected in 1979; the miner's strike apparently was in 84? I was there in 1980.

I don't think Thatcher had taken many if any of her steps to curtail union power etc in 1980; it's similar to Reagan who was elected in 1980, but didn't fire PATCO until 1981.

What I saw was Britain before Thatcher's drastic changes were implemented.

What you saw, even if you visited in January '80, was a UK that had already had several significant pieces of legislation promulgated since May '79. They revoked existing pay compacts with public sector workers (unheard of, back then, when govts traditionally honoured agreements made by their predecessors, and redressed issues at the next pay round) and announced "reviews" of several key industries in the manufacturing and extractive sectors. By the time you visited, trade unionists were well aware of where Thatcher would go, given the chance. That it took 5 years to be in a position to achieve her wishes doesn't detract from the fact that her wishes were obvious from the moment she took power.

 

[ViolentPanda]

She almost immediately provoked/encouraged a massive steel strike that lasted 4 bitterly fought months - and in that same early period attempted to push through a raft of mine closures. She got working straight away.

Joseph, Neave, Ridley et al had after all been planning this stuff from the moment they helped get her elected as leader of their party.

 

[hipipol]

Play them this

A little explanation of the background, war, destruction of whole communities and industries....
Might get it accross better than a undifferentiated stream of vitriol

 

[ViolentPanda]

So you're forgetting the old bailey, the tower of london, the parachute regiment barracks, the shooting (sorry no bomb) of ross mcwhirter, guildford and birmingham, among others.

I was always disappointed that McWhirter's execution never got in the Guiness Book of Records for fastest execution of an editor of the Guiness Book of Records.